Snapshot - 24 June 2026
Wholesale gas opened softer on Wednesday as the Middle East risk premium continued to drain out of the market. Progress on US-Iran talks, the steady reopening of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and confirmation that the weekend incident at Qatar's Ras Laffan affected only local supply have all eased the bullish case, while strong Norwegian flows, healthy LNG arrivals and comfortable storage add to the downward pull. Warm, above-average temperatures across the UK and Europe are cutting heating demand, leaving the prompt under pressure even after a firmer set of Tuesday settlements.
Power told a sharper story. Day-ahead baseload settled well above the prior day after a Tuesday-evening squeeze, when thin wind, a busy nuclear outage schedule and a football-driven demand surge pushed balancing prices to extreme levels into the peak. That spike has unwound into Wednesday, with the next-day market resetting markedly lower as wind recovers, though a heavy run of reactor outages and the threat of heat-related restrictions keep a floor under near-dated prices.
Across the wider complex, crude slipped to fresh three-month lows on expectations of freer shipping flows, and coal was a touch softer. Carbon moved lower, led by UK allowances, which fell sharply while EU allowances eased only modestly, widening the gap between the two schemes. Sterling was broadly steady. The fuller picture, with contract-level pricing and the supply and demand detail behind each move, is set out in the main report.
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